A special thanks to members of the  Ulster Aviation Society for the following information relating to RAF Bishopscourt .

BishopsCourt (details) was conceived in November 1941 and designed as a Class A bomber airfield, with a main runway of 2000 yards length and two subsidiaries of 1400 yards each, to accommodate a Coastal Command Operational Training Unit.  In April 1942, following the entry of the USA into World War II, it was earmarked to accommodate two light bomber squadrons of the USAAF’s Air Support Command but the plans, like so many during the War, did not come to fruition and, on becoming available for use in the Spring of 1943, it was allocated to RAF Flying Training Command. The first unit to be formed there, in May 1943, was No 7 Air Observers School, an event followed just over two months later by the formation of No 12 Air Gunners School.  Both schools were part of No 29 Group, Training Command and operated alongside each other until February 1944 when No 7 AOS was redesignated No 7 (Observers) Advanced Flying Unit.

The AFU continued in residence until May 1945 when both it and the AGS were disbanded and No 7 Air Navigation School was created in place of No 7 (O) AFU.  In June 1947, No 7 ANS was redesignated No 2 ANS on transfer to the Command’s No 25 Group but continued to be based at Bishops Court until October 1947 when it was transferred to Middleton St George and shortly afterwards Bishops Court was reduced to Care and Maintenance status

Respectively, the schools trained aircrew for the roles of Observer, a crew function which in response to changing technology was modified and renamed Navigator, and Air Gunner.  To facilitate their training, various types of aircraft were employed. 

For the most part, Ansons and Wellingtons were used although Mark VII Spitfires were also on strength with the AGS for a couple of months in the Spring of 1945.  In addition, Martinets towed drogues as targets for air to air gunnery practice. 

The training programme didn’t always run smoothly, weather being so bad during the summer of 1944 for instance that, on good nights, as many as 40 aircraft were airborne in an effort to get the training back on schedule, a reflection of the vital and urgent need to replace the large numbers of RAF aircrew expended by operational squadrons of Bomber and Coastal Commands up until the closing stages of the war.

Compared to its important, if somewhat mundane wartime role, the airfield’s subsequent history was one of vacillation and unfulfilled promise.  In March 1953, it reopened to accommodate No 3 Air Navigation School, equipped with Ansons and Varsities but a year later it disbanded.  A couple of years afterwards, some modifications were made to the runways and other facilities in anticipation of its becoming a base for all-weather fighters and an emergency dispersal airfield for the RAF’s V-bombers but once again the plans were abandoned. 

Enthusiastic aircraft spotters, eagerly anticipating Hunters, Javelins, Valiants, Vulcans and Victors had instead to content themselves with a few Kirby Cadet and Sedbergh gliders which arrived in 1959 with the RAFVR’s No 671 (Volunteer) Gliding School which was based at Bishops Court for nearly four years, giving Air Cadets gliding instruction. 

The decision in the early ‘sixties to move Belfast Airport from its site at Nutts Corner provoked much public comment and Bishops Court was considered by some to be a suitable replacement but such advantages as it might have offered were considerably outweighed by its remote location and once again its days seemed numbered. 

However, the existence of the Ulster Radar facilities originally established at Killard Point in 1959 as an essential part of a combined civil/military air traffic control network provided sufficient reason for a further stay of execution.  In the late ‘eighties, Air Cadets and Venture gliders reappeared with No 664 (Volunteer) Gliding School which was disbanded at the end of October 1990.

This marked the formal end of military flying at BishopsCourt and the airfield closed shortly thereafter.

The following information was also supplied by Ernie Cromie (Ulster Aviation Society)

"The photograph below is of a small corner of RAF BishopsCourt in 1944 showing 23 Ansons from one or other or both of the resident training schools.  The aircraft just above the approximate centre is a Halifax bomber.  I do not know why it was at Bishops Court at the time.  Possibly, it may have been obliged to divert here because it was unable to return to its base in England as a result of bad weather or other problems associated with a raid over Europe.  There were instances of this from time to time."